Eleanor Lloyd Productions and Theatre Royal Bath Productions have announced full casting for a brand-new production and UK tour of the critically acclaimed West End play Shakespeare in Love. As previously announced, the play will be directed by Phillip Breen and opens at Theatre Royal Bath on Thursday 4 October 2018 and will then embark on a national tour to Nottingham, Malvern, Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh and Chichester, with further venues to be announced.
Pierro Niel-Mee will star as Will Shakespeare with Imogen Daines as Viola, Rob Edwards as Fennyman, Geraldine Alexander as the Queen, Edmund Kingsley as Kit Marlowe, Bill Ward as Wessex, Ian Hughes as Henslowe, Giles Taylor as Tilney and De Lesseps, Edward Harrison as Burbage and Philip Labey as Sam. The cast also includes Rowan Polonski as Ned Alleyn/Catling, Kevin N Golding as Lambert/Wabash, Joshua Richards as Frees/Ralph, Jonathan Blaydon as Nol/Valentine, Richard Rowe McGhie as Adam, Rosalind Steele as Molly, Toby Webster as Peter/Robin and Jazmine Wilkinson as Webster/Mistress Quickly.
The Oscar-winning film Shakespeare in Love written by Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard and starring Judi Dench, Joseph Fiennes and Gwyneth Paltrow went on to win seven Academy Awards, including best screenplay, following its premiere in 1998. It was adapted for stage by Lee Hall, with music by Paddy Cunneen, and opened for a triumphant West End run in 2014 to both critical and public acclaim.
Young Will Shakespeare has writer’s block… the deadline for his new play – a comedy called Romeo and Ethel, the Pirate’s Daughter – is fast approaching, he’s struggling to finish the first line of a sonnet and he’s in dire need of inspiration. Then he meets the beguiling Viola de Lesseps, the beautiful daughter of a wealthy merchant. Viola is prepared to do anything – including risking the frosty disapproval of Queen Elizabeth I – to fulfil her illicit dream of performing on the London stage and pursuing a passionate affair with the greatest playwright of the age.
